


As the Sun Sets

by QuillHeart



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Gen, Immediate aftermath of canon, It's all extremely shonen somehow, Lio Fotia Still Has Powers, Medical Trauma, Opposing Ideologies, Ridiculous Anime Injuries, Strategy & Tactics, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22107322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillHeart/pseuds/QuillHeart
Summary: Immediately after the day is saved, Galo and Lio's to-do lists differ slightly. For example:Galo's top priority is saving all the Burnish he can.Lio's is killing Kray.And Kray's...well. They're about to find that out the hard way.
Relationships: Kray Foresight & Galo Thymos, Lio Fotia & Galo Thymos
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I'm still collecting Promare doujin to translate. If you have any you'd like to digitize and get translated, please contact me here, or skies.over.dreamfield@gmail.com, or on Discord at Quill#7338. Thanks!
> 
> Okay, I can't remember the exact setup at the end of the movie, so for the start of this fic, assume they're standing on top of the walls of the tipped over ship. And it's sunset. The RescueMobile (which I'm sorry is named like a Fischer Price Toddler Toy and I adore that fact) is directly below Lio and Galo some moderate distance away, with Kray & the BR team all around the truck more or less.
> 
> Sorry about all the typos. [*sweats*] Feel free to use any ideas you find here that interest you. 
> 
> Music: Harry Styles: Adore You

The green flame of energized Promare swept over them, over the world, bringing with it the warmest, gentlest feeling Galo had ever felt. It resonated within him like distant memories of his mother holding him, but with the strange impression that every molecule and atom in him was vibrating in sync with the others—and _healing_. Old scars, mental and physical, were knitting together in his body, and it felt _good._

With it came visions, sounds. Colors flashed in front of his eyes, or maybe behind them, sending stories and feelings and voices flickering through his mind, some his, some other people’s, some the Promares’. It was hard to make any intelligible sense of it, beyond the odd, bitter-sweet sense of someone (many someones) waving goodbye to him.

When it was done, he gazed at Lio. Lio gazed back at him with wide eyes.

Galo had no idea what was going on, but it was pleasant and conflicting and it certainly would have shown on his face. But Lio looked like all that and more. Like some momentous, damning thing had just struck to the core of his being, and he hadn’t yet come away from it fully. Standing there on the rise with one foot planted like he was conquering a world, Lio exchanged a few breathless words with him that he could barely remember, a promise to stick together and rebuild that felt more from the Promare than his own self, and then they turned away from each other, each gazing out at their own thoughts.

He had this strange feeling that he had been inside Lio’s body for a moment. Not like, inhabiting it, but that he _was_ it. He wondered if Lio was feeling the same. It wasn’t a bad feeling, just different. More like being one and multiple at the same time, the way a person could be in their dreams sometimes. He wondered if it was from the Prometech, or the Promare themselves. Was everyone on earth feeling it at this very moment?

He wasn’t sure, and for a while, he just breathed, hearing nothing, feeling everything, all in a buzzed soup that was vaguely warm and snug.

Slowly, the vibrations tingling through his nerves cooled, and his senses came back online, back down to earth. Maybe it was the fact that he had been touched by the Promare less than Lio, but he had snapped out of the orgasmic, green-flared hyperburn state faster than he did. Eventually, the warm buzz evaporated completely and Galo looked around, surveying the situation.

To the west, where the sun was setting: a proud city, glass skyscrapers shining and bright, stood in the long rays of the sun. To the east: a darkening sky and low-rise buildings, windows black even though their lights should be on. To the north: smoke and flame. It was no longer pink the way one would have expected, given that it was flares Lio himself had set to rampage. But with the power clearly down, there was no anti-burnish tech to put out the more earthly blazes that came on its heels.

 _Shit._ The word came to Galo’s brain with the force of a hammer, the very human clarity of it seeming harsh in his soul.

But he pushed through. Lio’s dragon had lit up about three miles’ worth of First Avenue all at once. If it wasn’t under control now, it wasn’t going to be and it would take every member of the city’s firefighting squadrons to fix it. It could honestly burn down the city, and would easily take days to contain. They had to evacuate.

But that left no one for the other emergency at hand.

Galo gazed down off where they stood. All around him to the south was a view of a good half-mile square of the city, lifted and toppled like a strike-slip earthquake had hit it. Kray had said no one was in the buildings, but they were undoubtedly trapped underneath. There were probably years’ worth of food and medical supplies tucked away on the ship, but without Kray, after half a mutiny, and a failed launch to boot, he wasn’t sure the command structure would be anything but a mess. The people could be stuck there for days, not wanting to come out, because how would they know they weren’t drifting in the dead of space? Most of them were probably injured from the fall out of the sky, too, though of course not nearly so much as the Burnish.

Galo took a deep breath and turned toward the ground. A hundred yards off, he spotted his BR team and the familiar white suit of the Governor. Captain Ignis held the man in one arm while Varys had him from the other side.

The governor may have been a monument of a man in every way you could count it, but there were many firefighting bricks around him that could keep him in check for the time being. He also seemed similarly dazed for the moment. Which just left—

Standing a little further up the incline, backlit in the burning light of sunset, Lio stood, fists clenched, feathery rays glowing around him as he gazed out at the horizon. It felt like they stretched further than they should, some residual shine of the Promare whispering around him. His hair fluttered to the side silently as a gentle, hot wind crossed between them.

As Galo started toward him, Lio wavered. A moment later, his legs buckled; he wobbled and toppled over onto his hands and knees. When Galo got to him, he was breathing hard, pushing at his heart with a hand, his thin chest sucking in air like it was in short supply.

Maybe it was. He wasn’t sure how Promare worked. Suddenly robbed of them, perhaps Lio’s blood would turn anoxic or something.

But as he knelt down beside his friend, it became clear Lio was afflicted with something else entirely. Something far more human.

There, in the beautiful flame of a burning sunset, Galo sat with Lio, arms around his bare shoulders that were growing steadily colder, as the man put his hands over his face and wept.

It had been wordless, and gasping, and soul-wracking. His thin frame spasmed over and over from staccatoed breaths that shot through him like bullets. There, with his back to the world and his view of the ruined city, Lio Fotia—terrorist, rebel, refugee, Burnish leader—cried in his arms, and he wasn’t sure if it was more adrenaline, relief, or grief. Given the sounds of it, it could’ve been all three.

Galo didn’t like hearing people cry. It made him nervous, made him remember his own entry into the foster system. He was used to frightened, traumatized crying by now, but this was different. This was far more intimate—far more in-tune with the situation. This was not someone’s primordial brain instinctively wailing to attract help and maybe burn off some incoherent fear. No, this was someone who was acutely aware of every thought and feeling and consequence they had faced and were facing still and being completely devastated by it.

It had also been so strange to see on Lio that for a bit, he wasn’t sure what to do. Do you comfort your commander? Not that Galo saw him that way, necessarily, but if Ignis or Kray—god damn it, Kray—had broken down, he wasn’t sure it’d be his place to help, or that he even could. But this felt more like Aina, like Remi...his friends. And friends didn’t abandon each other just because of some nervousness. Anxiety was the kindling to an emotional conflagration. He’d just have to put this one out by helping his little dragon shed all the tears he needed.

So Galo sat next to him, politely distant but comfortingly close, until his own anxiety had broken through and he’d put an arm around the poor guy.

Lio pushed him away at first with a half-hearted shove, but Galo drew him closer, gently but firmly.

“Shhh,” Galo coaxed at a whisper. “Whatever it is, it’ll feel better with someone else there, won’t it?”

 _“What have I done,”_ Lio sobbed. _“What have I done."_

Uncontrolled sobs shaking his shoulders, Lio molded to his side, hands clinging to him weakly for support.

“It’ll be okay,” Galo reassured, gently petting down his back. It was covered in little scars here and there. “It’ll be okay.”

Lio said nothing. He just sobbed, thick, choked noises singing out into the brightly colored air. A name came here, a name came there, a few words of anger and despair and sadness, but nothing entirely coherent between the sniffles and keens.

It didn’t last long, to be honest, probably only a couple of minutes. It wasn’t enough time to bleed out and work through whatever Lio was feeling, certainly, but he liked to think his presence helped shield him from the worst of it, whatever it was, and let him know he had at least one person still there for him whenever it came around to knock him down again.

Lio’s generals, Meis and Gueira, if he recalled from the news and days gone by, seemed genuinely like Lio’s close friends, as well as his ardent supporters and bodyguards. They might still be alive in the engine. He hoped they were. They would help too.

Perhaps it was a similar thought that propelled Lio out of one fit and into another. As the sun set and twilight crawled over the world, people started to move once more. The sounds of disaster response started around them, and Lio, sheltered against Galo’s chest, slowly got control of himself. Wiping at his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, Lio finally managed to stand—let alone take a solid breath—with Galo’s support.

He was unsteady on his feet, wobbly like he’d been sucker punched or was dizzy from anemia. His gasps were still deep, like he couldn’t pull enough oxygen from the air. Galo held onto his forearms, lest he be about to fall again, as Lio looked around. His eyes were wild, taking in Ignis and Kray, the rubble, the ship, the city. The clouds, the trees. Everything—which was, miraculously, not molten.

“We did it,” Galo said to that look, barely realizing he himself was talking. “We saved the world.”

But Lio only continued to cast around like a frightened child who’d lost his parent. He didn’t seem aware at all that Galo was touching him.

“Lio?” Galo asked, trying to get his attention like all medics would try. The fourth time, the man finally heard him, because he suddenly turned to him with a bewildered stare, like he was just realizing he was there.

“Galo!” he rushed, pulling him up to his feet. “Galo! We have to get the Burnish out of the engine and off the ship. They’ll be hurt, they’ll be weak—they’ll be sitting ducks!” He abruptly broke Galo’s grip on his wrist, only to grab him back by the shoulders, twice as hard. “We have to free them before the government or Kray’s goons lock down the ship to control the situation, or destroy them to get rid of the evidence. The enemy will be here soon, we have to do it before they come for Kray, and—”

“Lio,” Galo shook him a little.

“—And the tapes. The footage. Of him and the professor. Whoever sent that, your pink-haired friend?—”

“Aina.”

“Yes, Aina. She... She...?” he took a breath, stared at Galo’s belly button with laser focus for a second, then lifted his head and unfortunately went right back to looking around wildly anywhere but Galo’s face. “Tell her to make as many copies of the footage as she possibly can. Sent it to every news outlet in town immediately, and some in the nearest big city. Put it on the internet. Hell, burn copies and put them in people’s mailboxes and then tell her to burn the IP address and get out of town—”

“ _Lio_ ,” he tried again, more forcefully this time. Galo pulled him a little closer, by the arms.

“We have to get ahead of this, he’ll spin this and anybody in his pocket will help him—”

 _“Lio!”_ Galo all but shouted in his face. Lio, hair in every direction including straight up and stuck to his face because of static electricity, focused on him in dismay.

“What?” he whispered, wide-eyed, and very clearly not all there.

Taking a deep, steadying breath for the both of them, Galo smoothed his hands over Lio’s face heavily and then gripped both his cheeks. Large hands directed his face upward, until their eyes locked.

“You’re not bulletproof anymore.”

The rebel’s eyes widened. He took a quick, shallow breath through his nose, his mouth a tight line. He shifted his weight on his feet and tried to pull away, his short nails coming up to claw at Galo’s skin in lieu of being able to get at his own. He was looking anywhere but Galo.

“No. No, they can’t all have left. Rifts don’t work like that, it leaves ripples, I can feel it, I can—”

“Lio,” Galo went on, a bit more gently. His hands had slid off when Lio’s drew down over them, but now he gripped him by the back of the neck instead, still attempting to redirect his attention. “You can’t go back into the ship. They will catch you and they will probably kill you, out of spite if nothing else. The very least they will do is put you on trial as a terrorist and that will kill you too.”

Another breath sucked into Lio’s lungs. Galo nodded and bored his gaze into Lio’s and finally, _finally_ , it felt like he was getting through. “They probably have a list of every Burnish face they caught and yours was all over the news. The other Burnish will be set free but you will be strung up in the streets to die, do you understand me? Knowing the way this city works now, they’ll probably actually burn you alive or slowly freeze you to death like some fucked up piece of public art. You have to leave. You have to leave _now._ ”

It twisted his gut to have to admit it, let alone break that truth to someone. But it was also his job to make sure as many people as possible survived emergency situations, and he wanted Lio to _live_ through this one.

Lio was shivering under his hands. “But I! But Meis and Guiera and all the Burnish—”

“I’ll get them.”

He swallowed hard and smacked a hand over Galo’s, trying to claw it away. “You can’t. They saw me _and_ you, fighting Kray. Whatever they do to me, they’ll do worse to you because you’re one of them—”

“No.” Galo lowered his hands, to grip Lio by the wrists. It seemed to calm him somewhat, so he continued evenly, “I’m one of them, and that’s exactly _why_ they’ll need me if the charges against Kray are ever going to stick. Kray is the governor but he was doing all this through his companies, right? This wasn’t a state-sponsored crime. It’s _his_ crime. They won’t lay a fucking hand on me, because then everyone will know it’s all true.”

Lio gave a sick little sob of a laugh before stepping away. Galo let him, watching carefully as the young man with the blond hair looked around, running a hand over his mouth, his brow, his hair. He turned in a circle once, until his eyes fixed on Kray a ways off, being ringed by Squad Three and a few odd cops.

And then, all of a sudden, in the dimming light and Easter-colored wash of sky smattered with a few brightly shining planets, the look in his eyes changed. Old Lio was back.

“You’re a fool,” he spat, looking him up and down quickly, his hands on his hips. “You got a knife on you?”

“Yeah, on my bike’s kit. Everybody’ll have something like that in their work gear, and we got all kinds of stuff on the truck. Why?”

“Thank you.”

Just like that, he wheeled on his heel and was striding down the smooth steel of the ships exterior toward—

Toward—

“Oh. Oh, no-no-no! Nonononono don’t you dare!”

Galo managed to grab him around halfway down to the ground. He caught him by the arm and whirled him around. “You can’t kill him!”

Lio’s entire being went livid. “He _committed._ A _genocide_. Against _my people._ Because he _wanted._ To _use_ them. _For fuel,_ ” he reminded Galo through gritted teeth.

Galo swallowed hard, trying to not think of the engine room, and then hating himself for doing so. “I...I know, but that’s exactly why he needs to stand trial and face public justice.”

“And what kind of fair trial is he going to get in this city? _He owns it_.” Lio ripped out of Galo’s grasp and looked a little like he was surprised no flames had come with the gesture. “Dammit,” he growled at his fist.

He spun away again, but Galo caught him with two hands this time and whirled him back.

“ _Dammit_ Galo Thymos, if you stop me _one_ more time I swear on my own Promare I will—”

“The Promare are _gone_ , _stop fighting their war!_ ”

Lio startled, and for a couple of seconds, they stared at each other, unsure. Much to Galo’s dismay, Lio’s eyes narrowed in disgust and disappointment. Hands fisted, voice shaking, he swore venomously, “We are done here, Galo Thymos.”

“Lio...”

“That’s not how these things _work_. You _kill_ the _commander_ and put his _generals_ and _inner circle_ on trial,” he said, sweeping his hand out imperiously to illustrate the point. “You keep him alive and he rallies any ideals he stood for. His forces continue to grow, and chaos breeds. Commanders do not go to _jail,_ they are _murdered_ for the public good. If there’s one thing about war the Promare never changed, it’s that.”

“So should we kill you too!” Galo snapped, finally frustrated.

Lio swallowed, shook a little, but eventually swallowed it down. His fist clenched repeatedly at his side. “A double kill is an acceptable end-game to me and I have been prepared for it this whole time.”

“That’s so sad,” Galo hissed. “It’s such a waste. It’s fucking _stupid,_ is what it is.”

“Mourn me or praise me, it can only happen with the luxury of peace time,” Lio stated. “My legacy is not mine to decide. I can only act today with the best hand I’ve got. Galo, look at me.”

Slowly, Galo raised his head. Lio’s silver-lavender eyes were shining with the last of the evening light, twinkling stars crowning his head. “I am a rebel and a terrorist. There’s no way I was getting out of this alive short of taking over this city or founding my own in the desert. My oasis is smashed and I have no power to complete the former. This is the last thing I can do, and the _only_ thing I can do, to save face and rest in peace with my people. Let me have it.”

Galo couldn’t argue with the soul of that. He could see he wasn’t going to win this on semantics, but he had to try.

“I didn’t...” he protested, staring at the ground. “I didn’t bring you back to life so that you could kill the man who saved mine!”

“He...?” Lio blinked in surprise, then looked him over with new eyes, scrutinizing him. “When was this?”

“When I was six. But that’s not important. Look...”

“Galo Thymos,” Lio said, his tone infuriatingly insurmountable, back to the one he always commanded absolute loyalty with, the one that was not nearly so different from Kray’s as Galo would plead to the gods for it to be in the nights to come, “I appreciate that knowledge, but I cannot weigh your personal connection equally to the survival of an entire group of people, as much as I wish I could.” His voice softened, and that fact was the worst blow of all. “They had families too, and Kray killed them.”

“He killed mine too but do you think I want anyone else to die?!” Galo shook his head. “That’s exactly _why_ I don’t want anyone else to die!”

Lio sucked in a breath. Galo stared at his feet.

“Don’t leave. Please don’t leave me. Don’t throw your life away,” his voice dropped into a tiny waver and he hated it but he had to keep going. “We can figure something out... _Something_ that will help everyone, it may not make any of us totally happy but you know I can, please, just wait—”

“You are a sweet soul,” Lio’s soft voice said as the last natural light left them. The light of the BR truck came on, sending an eerie white glow up from below. “Not at all suited to war. Live long, and keep that thin candle safe, will you. Even if you burn with hatred of me for the rest of your life, know that that isn’t what I wanted for you, least of all about me.”

Lio tipped forward, and it took Galo a good while to realize it was a bow, rather than a medical problem. But that only made his teeth grit, his fists clench. He wanted to grab Lio by the shirt and shake him till all these ideas had left him, but he didn’t have a shirt to hold onto.

This felt like betrayal, somehow. This felt like...failure. And that was the part he couldn’t accept.

Even though Galo knew he had to let them an make his own mistakes, he couldn’t accept this end. But he also couldn’t get himself to strike him down, either. His fist was shaking, but it wouldn’t fly. Lio was acting like this had nothing to do with him. But it had _everything_ to do with him.

“I didn’t save your life,” Galo pleaded, eyes tightly shut, “for you to lose it again so soon.”

“No,” Lio agreed, surprisingly gently, from his bow. “But you _did_ do it so that I could live the rest of my days as I saw fit, didn’t you?”

He straightened up, and his gaze, as he focused on Galo, was not so personal as he would have wanted. It was sharp, his commander’s far-sighted gaze. “And this is the last thing I’m needed for. If I survive, great. If I don’t...at least I get to rest for a while.” He turned. “Goodbye, Galo Thymos. Thank you for saving the world with me. Please give my regards to Meis and Gueira, should be they alive. They will lead the Burnish, and remember me in my absence.”

The shadow of Lio Fotia’s feet left him in not two paces. Galo continued to stare at the ground, torn between raging and grieving and running after him.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t _let_ him do this. He had no idea what frame of mind Kray was in but it was probably as rattled as Lio’s, if not moreso. Galo firmly believed the stress of feeling like he had to save the planet while hiding his Burnish powers had made the man do what he did, pushed him into a corner and messed with his mind.

But he also believed people had to be allowed to do what they felt was right, however foolhardy, while similarly allowing others to fight them if they felt it necessary. That was a man’s sacred way.

But that broke down when premeditated crimes and hurting innocent people were involved. Kray wasn’t innocent but this was a bad crime Lio wanted to commit, one that would only spread hatred and malice and suffering.

Galo believed in forgiveness. He simply didn’t know which thing would be harder to forgive—Kray’s death, or Lio’s slow self-destruction from the inside out by being prevented from attempting it.

_I brought you back to life because you deserve to be alive._

Shaking his head out, Galo sought out Lio in the crowd below, which was substantial now, and headed toward him. Lio had made his decision. Galo had made his. Words had failed to sway the outcome. They’d just have to fight it out through sheer force of will, before the cops got involved.

They were men. They just had to duke it out sometimes. Lio would understand. Eventually. He hoped. He’d make sure of it.

There was always a way that wasn’t killing, if you were just willing to look for it. Galo wasn’t about to let Lio stoop to Kray’s level. He wasn’t about to let another star fall.

But just as he lifted his head to shout for the ground crew to intercept Lio and hold him back, he heard a scream. A woman’s scream, the kind a person yelped in shock.

Galo figured Lio had pulled the fireaxe off the truck, or some such thing. But before he could find that part of the vehicle in the glow, a distant shout of warning that sounded a lot like his name floated up through the wind. As did three quick pops.

The next thing he knew, he was staring at the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Prometheus is the mythological Greek Titan who gave man the gift of fire. Thus, the "promare" are named after him. They're Prometheons!
> 
> However, Prometheus himself was the god of forethought. So "Promepolis" is literally "town of forethought," or "foresight." Thus, Kray Foresight, who runs the town.
> 
> In here, I mention Epimepolis. Epimethius is Prometheus's brother. His name means "afterthought."
> 
> Also interesting, "Gallo" means end in Lithuanian. It's also the name, alt sp Gaul, of the group of people who were extremely strong barbarians that lived outside of Rome and were Franco-German. But even more interesting, Robert Gallo is one of the leading scientists who worked on identifying the AIDS virus. If that's not a nod to the gayness in this movie, it's one damn fine coincidence. 
> 
> Galo's last name, Thymos, means "wrath" in Greek. So his name is, possibly, "The End of Wrath." Which is the absolute, most badass name for our adorkable semi-punk himbo. Bless this mess.

It was nearly fully dark at this point, just the slightest hint of navy blue at one edge, a gradient full of stars stretching over Galo's entire vision. He thought he saw Venus. Or maybe Mars. Or was it Jupiter?

_I wonder what the sky looks like on that other planet?_

It was a stray thought, spun out of his dizzy mind as he watched the thin cirrus clouds spin by, an inky grey against the stars. He didn’t hurt, though. In fact, he couldn’t feel _anything._

...Why couldn’t he feel anything?

It seemed like a long time before faces came into view, but as soon as they did, they were a puzzle. It was Aina, and Remi, and someone he didn’t know dressed like a military medic.

Oh...was the military here?

“Stay with me, Galo,” Aina said. Her face looked intensely worried. Her voice sounded distant and far away. She tapped him on the cheek, and that felt far away too.

“Lio...?” he croaked in inquiry. If the military was here, he had to get Lio out of the way, to safety...

“He’s just fine,” Aina said, in the exact semi-alarmed tone Galo knew he used to lie to people to keep them calm when their friends were dead in the backseat.

“What...happened?” he insisted at a rasp, trying to get up and see for himself. It felt really hard to breathe.

The man at his side pushed him back down. His hands were red. Aina’s hands were red. She looked over her shoulder briefly, tensely, then sighed and swept back over him. There were shouts going on behind her. But no more _pops_. No whine and whirr of heavy mechs, no crackle of fire from a conflagration.

“Fuck...did Lio...get a knife?” he mumbled, tasting copper on his tongue.

“No, he’s just fine,” Aina repeated in that same tone. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

She flashed three. He said so, groggily, then raised his own arm. It was unsteady, he felt oddly disembodied, but he managed to cup her face with a big hand. It was warm. Just the hint of it, but it was there. She paused, and sought out his face.

“What happened?” he asked. Demanded, really.

Her lips pulled into a frown. “Kray shot you.”

He blinked at her tiredly, disappointed and heavy with it but still more confused than anything. “But why?”

“Didn’t say. Please hold still, you hit your head...”

She placed his hand back at his side. He watched her and Remi open and flail little white fluffy things around his vision, which he recognized as packing a major wound.

He still couldn’t feel much. But his arm had worked. He shifted his feet. It came back dull, but moving. Shock, then? Or incomplete spinal damage? That seemed much more important than the fact that one side of his chest seemed to be getting heavier by the minute.

“How’d he get...a gun...?” he whispered in a haze, dizziness setting in again. He closed his eyes.

“It was all very quick but there were a few cops, he just took it and—”

“Hey, bud, you gotta stay awake,” Remi interjected, tapping at his other arm. There was a force to his voice, an edge to it, that startled Galo back into opening his eyes. He didn’t want to disappoint people, not people he worked with, not people that needed something from him.

“Dizzy,” he explained.

“That’s okay,” Remi said. “We’ll get you fixed up, just keep your eyes open okay?”

“Mmnkay,” Galo said, swallowing down warm copper bubbling in his mouth. It tasted gross, and hit his stomach sourly.

“I need you to stay as still as you can for me, too,” Aina said. The three of them traded words back and forth. The third man said something to Remi, and Remi left in a rush. To get supplies, probably.

“Where...’m I hit? Spine...?” Galo rasped.

He really didn’t want an answer. But he needed one.

Aina gazed at him a dreadfully long second and took a long breath. He knew, distantly, this was breaking the rules of this sort of thing, and the ones she’d laid out for him just a moment ago. But this was _important_. Even if he _was_ being unprofessional and hypocritical. A spot of unprofessionality wouldn’t really matter if he couldn’t work at all anymore.

“Chest,” she eventually stated. “By the collarbone.”

Oh...that could be really good, honestly. There wasn’t much up there, though it’d probably still end his career because of fucking up his lifting strength. Damn.

“Arr’tery...?”

“Your artery is mostly in-tact, son, but it’s a lot of blood, your lung may be impacted, the bullet’s really close to your heart and might’ve nicked it. We gotta stabilize you and send you to the hospital to make sure you come out of this okay, okay?” the paramedic stated firmly.

“Lung? Ribs?”

“Don’t know where the bullet went yet but you’ve got a lot of muscle and that’ll help things,” he explained. “But only if you stay down and do what we say.”

Galo grunted, finally satisfied. “Ah,” he coughed, sputtering out blood. “Then...”

Galo struggled to a sitting position and then, even though his body felt like lead, pushed to his feet. He muttered apologies to his saviors’ protests and, holding the gauze packets in place and incredulous people at bay, slid down the side of the ship into the fray before they could hold him back. He was so dizzy it took him a bit to stand, but he managed it. A quick look revealed two main camps of commotion, on opposite sides of the truck.

One had a white figure in its center, being shouted at and tied up by people all in red and a few TV cameras. The other camp, which admittedly was bigger, was surrounded by men in black gear or blue uniforms.

When Galo pushed the first one to the side, the rest pulled back in shock, probably from the way he looked. There were a few though, in the center, who were pinning down a wildly thrashing man in leather.

“Let me go! I’ll kill him, I’ll fucking _kill_ him, the bastard!!”

The way Lio was growling and screeching, he normally would’ve cleared a block-wide radius around himself by now, and for all he was good at combat, he was little better than turtle on its back now, with five guys and a—

All of a sudden, Lio noticed him, and Galo noticed, through his own, blood-rasping semi-conscious haze, the shape he was in.

His arm and neck was absolutely covered in red. Two deep purple wounds, ragged and grizzly, had ripped through his chest and neck. His teeth were shiny with blood. He could only have been alive right now because a man was holding a shirt to his neck despite his flailing.

“Galo,” he rasped, finally quieting. “You’re alive...oh good...”

“You brought a knife to a gun fight, didn’t you? Amateur.”

The words were hollow. He barely felt them. They felt like they were coming from someone else, but there was nothing else he could do. That much was obvious. Galo’s own med team caught up with him, and tried to pull him away, but the crowd incidentally blocked them out.

“To be fair,” Lio hissed, an actual _bubble_ of blood coming out of his mouth, “I was...unarmed. ‘E saw...me c’ming and...d’cided t’ shoot...you...in th’ head, first. Bastard.”

“Please stop talking,” the nearest medic said, as he pressed hard on Lio’s throat. Lio winced and coughed.

“Galo,” Aina said desperately, finally breaking through the crowd enough to tug at his bicep, “Galo please, you’re going to collapse any second, you’re only standing on adrenaline—”

As the guys jumped to work on Lio now that he was finally still, Lio went on from the ground, “This hole...’n m’ chest...the only reason...’e missed.” He tilted his head back and gave a soft sigh and a sick chuckle, both of which sent blood bubbling through his wounds. “Fuckin’ mess.”

A second guy, working on his chest, pressed hard on the wound, trying to get the clotting agents to hold, and Lio twitched hard. A pulse of pain shot through his body, jerking his hands and feet when it reached the end of the line. A moment later, he groaned softly, more like whined. Around the forest of medical and security personnel holding him down, Galo could see Lio’s skin growing paler by the second.

There were people all around them in a ring, at least three people deep. Personal security, cops, military, some civilians, print reporters, and TV news cameras. But they were all just a black mass to Galo. He stumbled forward, pulling away from Aina, until he was right at Lio’s feet. The nearest medic looked up at him as his shadow fell over them from the truck’s lights. His eyes went wide at the sight of him, and the wound Galo was clutching at his own chest.

“But why would he do that?” Galo mourned in a daze.

Lio’s pained eyes opened and found him. “Because you mean nothing to him and he’s angry,” he whispered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I told you so.”

 _Burn_.

“Gentlemen, I really need to address this patient’s wounds if you want him to live. And _you_ —”

“No.” Lio, fixing his gaze on Galo, motioned the medic team away with his good arm. The uniforms, now that he wasn’t struggling, released him as well, shifting backwards. It left just enough space for Galo to come down next to him.

“Come.” Lio lifted his slender hand, and Galo fell to his knees to meet it.

 _Burn it_.

Lio’s big eyes locked with his.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he whispered. “Do it.”

Lio’s voice was weak. His shallow rasping was thick and wet . After a particular bad series of coughs, his eyes fluttered shut and stayed that way.

Like a call in a dream, Galo felt himself warming. He thought it was the wound, maybe the anger. But it wasn’t.

He knew what this was. It felt like Lio. Like being bonded with his flames in the mech.

It felt like the tender, radiant flush the Promare had just burned over the earth.

 _Burn him_.

“Mayb’...there’s some resid’dual...rad’ation,” Lio hacked, eyebrows knit tight. “Can hope, an’way...”

“Shut up,” Galo mumbled half heartedly. “Idiot.”

But he was too full of sorrow to really burn.

_I don’t want to burn anyone. I don’t want him to hurt. I want him to be well._

He may have had a burning firefighter’s soul, but he also had a paramedic’s heart, that grieved whenever it couldn’t save someone. And Lio was too far gone to save. Anyone with any training could tell that.

_Well him._

It was just a little voice. High pitched and squeaky, reverberating in his mind and not entirely Human, not entirely understanding syntax. It almost felt like someone piecing together neurons in his head to get memories of a voice to come out, or like a bird, chirping back calls it’d heard. There were other random sounds too, like water droplets, bubbles popping, chimes tinkling, and sparks crackling. He didn’t know what it was, scientifically speaking, but he knew it was the Promare, somehow. Maybe a few had stayed behind, or were simply stragglers on their way out. Supernovae took a few weeks to dim, didn’t they? Maybe it was like that.

Or maybe some simply had been born here, deep in the planet’s core, so there was nowhere for them to leave _to_.

And maybe those...he could call upon to help them.

He had to hope, anyway.

As his vision began to dim, lost in the colors and sounds of the Promare and the darkness of blood loss and broken breathing, Galo fitted his palm over Lio’s wound. His mashed skin slid and parted under his fingers.

_Ignite!_

The instant he touched him, it was like sparks had flared to life in his arm, zipping out of his heart.

Lio’s breath sucked in, long and slow, and then exploded out of him all of a sudden like a back draft. Unnaturally colored flames licked out of his mouth, burning off the blood in an acrid, dark smoke. All around them, people gasped and screamed.

Lio writhed underneath him, making staccatoed, pained noises, but Galo couldn’t get himself to stop. Like an addiction, he needed _more_ —more power, more heat—and with each new notch of heat and force, he came more and more awake, more and more alive, closer and closer to a humming whiteness behind his eyes that he knew somehow was oneness with the Promare.

The pooling blood welled up out of Lio’s chest, neck, and mouth, and then literally boiled off of him. The otherworldly flames grew out of his cells one by one until they had entwined and knitted together into a conflagration hovering around him. The artificial medical devices turned to ash and swirled upward into the flame. Under his hands, leaning with all their weight on Lio’s chest and neck, he felt flesh harden. Felt it _bake_.

And then, all of a sudden, it stopped.

The little voice-urge in his mind stopped guiding him. It shut off like a light switch and wound down with nothing more than a sated sigh, a tinkle of wind chimes, and a popping litany of bubbles.

Galo blinked a few times, hazy, trying to focus. Eventually, the colors in his mind cleared to reveal Lio in front of him, bare chested and breathing hard and smiling a stupid, bedraggled smile.

Galo gazed at the canvas of his skin numbly, until a bright red spot of blood fell onto it. And then another, and two more—

Lio’s lavender eyes fluttered open. His mouth worked a couple of times soundlessly. He seemed foggy—but happily so. He was humming in a way that was oddly akin to purring.

Galo was still puzzling over it when a sharp pain stabbed through his chest, and then another one. His weight on one arm, he groaned and pushed at his heart. It was beating erratically, painfully. And his chest still felt heavy as if a stone had been dropped in there. His vision swam, and he had to brace himself with both arms over Lio lest he fall on top of him completely.

He coughed, and bright red speckled all over Lio’s chest like a splatter painting.

Lio watched all this impassively, then silently lifted a hand to Galo’s chest, over his heart.

“You overdid it,” he sighed fondly. A small pink and green flame came to life under his fingers, warming Galo’s chest until it didn’t hurt anymore. Even the bullet wound stopped hurting, and smoke started to erupt from his mouth. It tasted terrible, tasted like metallic ash and blood, but his chest felt lighter. So much lighter, and when he drew a breath again, it was full and strong.

And in a few moments, he stopped coughing up blood at all.

“If the Promare don’t have the nuclear power of their star anymore, they’ll use the electro-chemical energy stored in your cells to make their flames, I suspect,” Lio whispered in a dreamy haze. “Don’t give yourself a heart attack...or hypothermia.”

He smoothed over Galo’s collar bone because it was in easy reach, and then cupped the side of his head. A warmth bloomed to life there, separate from the pain of swelling bruising, and quickly started writing over it. It felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket, or being in front of a fireplace, and Galo wavered underneath it, having to brace heavily on his forearms with a groan to keep him from falling over. He came dangerously close to Lio’s lips with his own, and his hair fell over their faces, curtaining it.

“You can’t kill Kray,” he insisted, pained, even though all he could focus on was Lio’s fingers curled insistently over the base of his skull.

Lio said nothing.

“Promise me you won’t kill him. Not till I’ve talked with him. Not ever.”

Lio sighed, pulling his flames away. “I’ll settle for fixing your concussion for today.” He tapped Galo on the nose, which Galo suddenly realized had stopped bleeding. As Galo drew up a little, Lio pressed a hand flat to Galo’s forehead, and the warmth returned, as did the faint light glowing through his hand.

Galo’s head warmed, and he wavered in place as the world spun slightly. But soon enough it was done, and Galo blinked a few times, feeling clear and focused.

Lio shivered and placed both hands on his own face like he was hiding his eyes from the truck’s light. He sighed again before gazing around at the ring of people—which had grown, Galo realized perplexingly, both denser and further away.

Galo blushed as he followed Lio’s gaze and saw them all staring—and then paled when he realized what he’d just done in front of them.

Galo’s attention snapped down to Lio in horror. Lio’s cool, calculated gaze, visible between his fingers, flicked over to him. He thought he sensed a wicked grin under there, but it disappeared quickly.

“Take care of my people,” he whispered. “They’re your people too, now.”

Galo’s brow furrowed deeply. Lio sighed, put-upon, and pushed Galo back by the chest until he fell over with a yelp.

“ _Thank you, Galo Thymos, hero of Promepolis, for all your wonderful healing energy!_ ” Lio shouted with a grandiose tone, rising to his knees in a way that was positively threatening. “Even injured, your burning firefighter’s soul came when I called for it!” He boomed out a laugh, and held out his arms with all the theatricality of when they’d first met. He climbed to his feet, flames at his fists. “I, Lio Fotia, the leader of the Mad Burnish, hereby release you from my thrall!”

He laughed again, and everyone around them was staring and gasping in horror. Galo, though, from up close, could tell he was barely staying on his feet. His flames were thin and short, with barely any heat from them; you could easily replace them with the energy of a 60 watt bulb.

“Who among you would like the honor of detaining me, when you’ve just seen your leader try to kill your unarmed favored son, and melt your lovely city to lava ash?”

He stalked in a circle, arms outstretched. “Or will you perhaps let me _go_...?”

He was smiling and jeering and purring, flames flashy and rippling out here and there at cameras and the defenseless. He eyed the men with guns, but they were hardly ready to fire in a ring of civilians either, lest they miss or set him off completely.

For his part, Galo could tell that this was all for show, though hell if he could figure out why. He was materializing no armor, no weapons. He wouldn’t last a minute if they shot him again, and any freeze bullets would make him lose an arm from hypothermia.

And then he looked down at Galo, who was by far the closest to him of anyone there. Lio jabbed at his flank with a foot.

“Ow. What was _that_ for?”

“ _Attack me_ ,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “ _You imbecile_.”

Then he raised his head with a fantastic toss of his bloody hair and announced loudly, “Or should I just take it out on this man here?”

 _Self defense_ , murmured a tiny, squeaky voice in the back of his mind with a semblance of Lio’s voice, and then, it chimed out an excited little tone that was all its own, ala, _Oh boy, a fight_!

Lio turned back around. Galo, head woozy still, pulled to his feet.

“I won’t let you!”

Lio turned slowly, an absolutely callous smirk on his lips—and sweat on his brow. “Hooooh? A challenger, is it? You want to try again, man to man?”

There were cameras around. So many cameras.

Lio swallowed hard, breathed hard. Galo resented that he had to do this, still felt like shit enough that he might still die when he came down off the adrenaline, but...

“You may have a legit reason to hate Kray Foresight,” he began, causing Lio’s eyes to widen. “He’s incited bigotry of the Burnish among the people of Promepolis so that he could use bullshit laws to detain them for human experimentation.”

The words came slowly at first, heavily. But each one was quicker and more heated than the last. Galo clenched his fists, and Lio took a step back, as did everyone else. “He may have tried to kill me—at least twice.” Galo lifted his head and pointed a damning finger at Lio. “He may have enslaved your innocent brothers and sisters and put Burnish men, women, and _children_ in the engine of his ship to use _as fuel._ He may have been trying to escape with his cronies to the stars as their new god while he let the planet and all of us burn. _He may be a burnish himself!—_ But I refuse to let you kill him, no matter how much you use me, because the Burnish and the people of this city deserve the rule of law, not the fear of a tyrant shadow king!"

He threw a punch. Lio dodged it, but wobbled on his feet a little. Quickly planting his stance to regain his balance, he whirled around and threw his own punch, right into Galo’s gut. Galo bent over it, but it didn’t leave him as wheezing as it should have. It was hot and flashy, even causing a deep whistling sound somehow, but it had barely hit him in reality.

“Knock me on the ground and headbutt me,” Lio whispered over his head. And then, yelling loudly, “you fool!”

“Rrr—rahhhgh!” Annoyed at it all, aware of what he was trying to do now and totally unconvinced it’d work, Galo put his shoulder into Lio’s abs and roared. He surged forward, flipping him over his shoulder, and then slamed him onto the ground.

“If I’ve defeated you once, I can defeat you again!” Galo roared. As Lio writhed with his breath knocked out of him—fuck, he’d probably actually hurt him with that—Galo straddled him, eliciting many shocked and awed voices from the crowd.

Mostly on momentum, Galo raised his hands in a twined fist over his head, like he was about to bludgeon his adversary with a rock. Lio was small, so it felt like beating on a kid or a woman, but the show had to go on.

“I will extinguish your flames with my burning fire-fighter’s soul!”

“That metaphor makes no sense!” Lio shouted back.

Galo threw his hands down. Lio dodged it once, twice—faked a kick to his groin—

“ _ERRRRAAGH!_ ”

—And then Galo grabbed him by the throat and smashed his forehead into his.

It was not a fake move. It was not a full-force move, either, but Lio indeed let his flames gutter out and played dead, while Galo whispered an apology and woozily dragged himself to his feet.

“Even if you grievances _are_ legitimate!” he shouted as a final note, throwing his hand down aggressively. “ _And_ your group _hasn’t_ killed anybody since you took over. _Shit._ ”

With that, Galo picked the “unconscious” Lio up, threw him over his shoulder, and finally stalked into the crowd to stumble back into the care of his medical team.

Climbing the ladder on the side of the truck, he tossed Lio onto the flatbed roof up there, where no one could shoot him in either sense of the word. Aina quickly climbed up after them, a med kit in-hand. The rest of the BR team quickly jumped in the truck as well, locking the doors.

Exhausted, his legs quivered like jelly, Galo collapsed onto the metal floor. It was cold and bumpy and he hated it, staring up at the dark night sky again as Aina and Remi bent over him once more with concerned faces. His heart was racing, he didn’t feel right, and he felt sick with what Lio had just done in the name of protecting Galo’s reputation.

But he’d scored the necessary blow against Kray’s reputation that they needed, where no one could unhear it. He could lie and obfuscate later, but this, at least, had been a victory, of a sort.

“We have to get the Burnish,” Galo said to Aina between dizzy gasps, picking up her hand as it feathered over his chest looking for wounds.

“We will,” she said, nodding to Remi. He went over to the front of the vehicle and leaned down, rapping on the window.

The sirens and warning lights of the truck flashed on. Galo winced and held his head. It was much louder from the outside than the inside, damn.

As they crept forward, followed by a ring of reporters and cops, Galo looked at Lio. He was lying on his side under the bench with some extra hoses. His purple eyes glowed softly in the shadows, when he wasn’t lit up in red from the swirling light. It reminded him of the red light of Kray’s eyes when he was burning with violence.

“It’s gonna be a long night,” Lio muttered, closing his eyes. “Wake me when we get to the engine.”

“I hate you sometimes,” Galo muttered.

“Like the times when I’m right?” Lio muttered back, completely unfased.

Galo sighed. “What happened to Kray, Aina?”

“He’s in the detainment mech,” she said with rolled eyes and a tense breath. "We’re gonna take him back to the station, and see what’s up from there. Squad Four's been dispatched to the ship's lower decks. I warned them about what was in there.”

"Good," Galo said in thanks, and then, closing his eyes with a groan, “We’re so getting fired.”

“Probably. I think we’re technically kidnapping the governor. So maybe it’s time to pack up stakes to Epimepolis.”

It was the next town over, a very small hamlet about 300 miles away that resisted any digital advances. They didn’t share currency, unfortunately, and Galo was sure all his assets would be frozen regardless. It’d be hard to hide there, and even harder to make it there with nothing but his motorcycle and its small tank of gas.

“I hear their weather sucks,” Remi replied to that.

“Yeah,” Aina admitted.

Galo looked over to Lio. He was staring at his hand, glowing a little but sans fire.

“Still not bulletproof,” Galo stated, when the truck was moving quickly enough that they’d lost their press contingent and turned off the siren.

Lio shot him an unamused glare, and tucked his hand under his armpit. “Look,” he began. “I won’t kill him until you’re ready to let me kill him. But if he hurts even one hair on your goddamned head again, there shall be no mercy. How’s that?”

Galo sighed. “Can I bargain you down to, ‘next time he kills someone, you can’?”

Lio’s jaw clenched. “In case you didn’t realize, he just about did five minutes ago. To _both_ of us.”

“We just destroyed his ship and his life. I think he’s distraught.”

“You are...” Lio twitched and grumbled. “They’ll beautify you when you martyr yourself, I’m sure.”

“..........Thanks?”

“Try not to do it before I die.”

“..........Try not to run head-first into dying like a total chump, then.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“But seriously. Please don’t kill him until I can talk to him.”

Lio’s eyes were closed, and he seemed unwilling to open them again no matter the bait. He was already curled up like the cats he was named after, head tucked against a folded arm. He growled his response, which sounded like an extremely grudging, _I’ll think about it._

“Thanks, Lio.”

“Whatever.”

"And, Lio?"

" _What?"_ he snapped.

"Please don't die. I like having you around. You're very...bright, somehow."

Lio stared at him with wide eyes that were both frozen and aggressive. And then, all of a sudden, his face lit up, glowing like his hand had been. He growled and rolled over to hide it.

"Whatever!" he shouted back. "You've known me for two days!"

"It's more like a week!"

Lio twitched and curled up into a ball. His entire body started to glow faintly. He started mumbling to himself, things that sounded like _They'll never let me live this down_ and _This can't be happening._

“Aina,” Galo said, when it became apparent Lio needed some alone time. He pulled the young woman down into him and relished her warmth against the chilling night air. “Be my blanket.”

“Oh my _god_ you’re so _sweaty_! Gross! Let me go!”

He didn’t let her go.

“I’m gonna fall asleep for a bit I think,” he said. He couldn’t move his arms. They were too heavy. “I’m not turning to ash am I?”

Lio must have turned his head back at the very least, because a few second later, his voice floated over. “No. Go to sleep, Galo.”

A few more seconds went by, and Aina drew an idle circle against his chest with a fingertip. “You saved the world today, Galo,” she whispered into his skin. “I think you deserve a good rest.”

“Just for a little while,” he mumbled, already drifting off.

“Just for a little while,” she agreed.

When he dreamed, he saw Lio, and Kray, and Aina; he felt fire, and ash, and healing. And all around it were so many colors and sounds—millions of tiny little Promare, waving at him across eons.

But through it all, he was aware there was still so very much to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the end of this is so abrupt and kinda silly. I've never tried for a light-hearted note to end on but I think it worked out okay? Thanks for reading! And don't forget to chip away at corrupt governments in your free time~! <3


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